IAB: Search Still On Top, Accounting For Nearly Half Of Interactive Ad Spending

Spending on Search Marketing continues to be the biggest contributor to online advertising revenues in the U.S., according to the latest report on the first half of 2012 released by the Interactive Advertising Bureau and Pricewaterhouse Coopers.

Search ads represented 48% of the overall interactive advertising market in the first six months of 2012, bringing in $8.1 billion. The 2012 revenue figure is 19% higher than what was recorded during the same period of 2011, when search represented 46% of the market.

The report also showed that performance (often cost-per-click) pricing, which is strongly associated with search as well as with the Google Display Network, remains the dominant pricing model online, continuing to grow in strength. Performance deals accounted for 67% of spend in the first half, while display dipped to just 31% and hybrid deals represented just 2% of spending.

About The Author

Pamela Parker is Executive Features Editor at Search Engine Land and Marketing Land. She’s a well-respected authority on digital marketing, having reported and written on the subject since 1998. She's a former managing editor of ClickZ, and worked on the business side helping independent publishers monetize their sites at Federated Media Publishing.

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Good reminder of where SEM folks (who have free reign) should spend their time.

Durant Imboden

One line in the report that jumped out at me was: “There is evidence that CPMs are maintaining, and even increasing, further substantiating the vitality of the internet ad market.”

http://www.brickmarketing.com/ Nick Stamoulis

Personally, I’ve noticed that PPC isn’t performing as well as it used to. I think this has to do with the fact that searchers are getting smarter, they can recognize the difference between a paid ad and organic listing. Maybe it’s different for other industries, but I’ll be interested to see how spending evolves over next year.

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